


the dualism waltz

by Spacedog



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hades (Video Game 2018) Spoilers, Identity Porn, Inaccurate Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Love Confessions, M/M, Minor Megaera/Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game), Minor Megaera/Zagreus (Hades Video Game), Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, post-epilogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:28:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28786464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spacedog/pseuds/Spacedog
Summary: He can feel it in the burning soles of his feet, in his bones, in the ever-present buzz that—in his few moments of stillness—he can hear underneath the thrum of his fragile, immortal heart.It’s strange, but not unfamiliar: a someone else there, an ancient presence that should not exist, something broken, destroyed, and long-forgotten. But there, beneath his skin. Beneathhim.(or: the origins of love.)
Relationships: Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 99





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is not accurate to most interpretations of ancient greek mythos and actively contradicts some stories. i take the incarnation of myth in HADES as its own universe and realm of ideas, and similarly, i take adding and remixing and transforming and incorporating original elements of mythos into the HADES universe as an exercise in universe-building, more than it is an exercise in interpretation of myth. 
> 
> this is all to say that yes, it’s very, very “inaccurate,” pls don’t @ me classics scholars

Sometimes, Zagreus feels as if he is not alone in his body. 

The god who was never meant to be, the prince whose every single moment is an act of rebellion against the Fates, as it were, is no stranger to feeling disembodied. In many ways, he’s used to his body not being his own—after all, what is the act of channeling the various gifts of his extended family if not letting them, in minor ways, inhibit his body? What is accepting help from Olympus if not, in its own way, an episode of godly possession?

This feeling, though. This feeling is far from that. 

He does not have words for it, not exactly. It’s the uncanniness of being watched. It’s the safety of being looked after. It’s the warmth of being home, with the emptiness that comes from feeling _not whole._

Zagreus does not think much of this strangeness, of the middling feeling that intermittently creeps up the nape of his neck whispering to him that _something is missing, something else is going on._

After all, having grown up on secrets and half-truths, that ever-present fundamental discomfort is all Zagreus knows. 

\---

Outside of floating down the river Styx, there are very few moments where Zagreus is still. He is energetic to a fault, as his father would say, constantly moving even when he settles down to rest. Of those rare moments of stillness, brief and fleeting and precious, there are even fewer still that do not involve Thanatos. The God of Death is quite persuasive—after all, it comes with the job. But Thanatos does not need to do much to persuade Zagreus to slow down. Half the time, all he needs is a smile, a look, a brief brush of skin against skin. 

There is a brush of Thanatos’s bare skin—always on the cooler side, like the first sip from a fountain deep in the bowels of Tartarus, or the first rush of snow-chilled air that hits Zagreus when he reaches the surface—against Zagreus’s own, in one particularly-quiet moment. They are still, or at least, as still as they can be, sprawled out skin-to-skin on the recliner in the young prince’s chambers. 

They do not speak, as they do not need to. They simply lie together, Zagreus flipping through one of the many ancient, unread tomes that he, somehow, keeps accumulating; Thanatos is tucked against him, reveling in the ever-so-brief break that he gets from his diligent post as the God of Death. 

In that moment, they can forget their jobs, their duties, the ways their very roles in the universe keep them running until they’re both ragged. For a moment, they can forget that they occupy high stations in the Kingdom of the Underworld, positions that hold both power unfathomable to their mortal charges, and responsibilities that few—immortals included—would envy. 

And in that moment, faint though it may be, Zagreus thinks that he and Thanatos are entwined close enough to feel Thanatos’s soul reaching out to his own, pressing against his own, as if they are two halves angling to become whole once more. 

This, too, he does not question. The Prince of Hell, after all, knows the depth of love that is possible for the no-longer-living. It stands to reason that it would be just the same—if not more intense, if not more like what he and Thanatos share—for immortals. 

Though he has one of his many tomes open in front of him, Zagreus is only half-reading from it. Not that he could help his distractedness. He’s too enamored by the feeling of Thanatos lying curled up small and vulnerable next to him—sweat-sticky and stripped down to the skin, his hair smelling like the surface air and the shores of the Styx all at once—to _really_ draw his attention to his book. 

That is, until he catches something that is somehow even more exciting, more intriguing, than Death as a lover.

The knowledge that takes hold of Zagreus barely draws attention to itself, taking form as an aside, a digression, a piece of information incidental to the rest of the histories being told. In many ways, it should not matter at all. 

But to Zagreus, it’s the only thing on that page, in that whole tome, perhaps in his whole library, that matters. 

“Than,” Zagreus says. 

He doesn’t speak with urgency. Because after all, what could be so urgent that it disrupts the scene before him, of Death sprawled out next to him, looking loose and warm and carefree—but he does speak with some energy, an excitement, even. 

“Yes, Zagreus?” Thanatos asks, and when he speaks Zagreus’s name, it almost sounds like it is not his, like it is little more than a nickname, a pet name, a sweet nothing in place of what he should _really_ be called. 

“You ever heard of this?” he asks, handing the tome to Thanatos. “A god from long ago, with sole dominion over the realms of life and death?” 

Thanatos hums thoughtfully, skimming over the words quickly before returning the tome to Zagreus. “Can’t say I have.” 

“Mm,” is all Zagreus says in response, far from all that he has to say on the matter. 

“Why?” Thanatos asks, looking at Zagreus so, so intently. Before, Zagreus might have withered under Thanatos’s sharp gaze, but now, he just revels in it, able to catch the fondness underneath intensity. “What’s on your mind?”

“It’s just—” Zagreus starts. Something in his chest feels like it has been set ablaze, like the first spark lighting up a ceremonial pyre. It makes him buzz. Anytime else, and he would be pacing about the room, burning out those boundless stores of energy as best he could. But with Thanatos next to him, he stills, feeling a focus, a calm, that he is rarely bestowed outside of his lover’s influence. “An elder god, holding sole dominion over the whole of life and death. You would have thought that we would know about him, right? That he would be here, with us, in the House. You would think that we would be working alongside him.”

“But we’re not,” Thanatos says, finishing Zagreus’s thought for him. Even with such a tantalizing mystery in front of him, arresting his attention, Zagreus takes a moment to beam in the joy that _being on the same page_ brings him. It was not always like this. It took work, it took heartache, it took both of them talking past each other for years and years and years, and even still, words sometimes elude the both of them.

But that’s neither here nor there, now. 

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Zagreus says, mentally pivoting back to the issue at hand. “I’ve never heard a single word about this god. I mean, I wouldn’t have listened to Father if he ever told me about this elder god, but I never heard a thing of this god from him. I should have! But I haven’t. What’s the likelihood that he truly just—disappeared? _Somebody_ has to know something.” 

“Mm, well. Perhaps he is of a time long before your father came to this realm. That said. If my mother hasn’t shared any stories of this god in her whole time raising the both of us, even after the truth about your own mother came to light, I doubt she’s keeping information from us intentionally,” Thanatos says, careful, analytical, but no less full of clear fondness. Though his flat tone might suggest otherwise, Zagreus can tell that Thanatos is excited by his own excitement. If he weren’t so energized by the mystery unfolding in front of him, Thanatos’s own expressions of care would have done it for him. “Regardless, it couldn’t hurt to ask. Perhaps you’ll jog her memory.” 

“Perhaps. I was thinking to ask Lady Demeter about it. She’s the oldest of the Olympians. If anyone other than your mother is going to know anything about this god, it’s her,” Zagreus says, plans for his next escape already spinning in his mind. “Or Master Chaos. If they’re feeling particularly generous with their knowledge of all creation. It might mean I’ll have to suffer bodily for it, but that’s part of Master Chaos’s charm, I suppose.” 

“Ever-persistent,” Thanatos says, and he leans up to kiss Zagreus, soft. Zagreus feels his own eyelashes flutter and a warm blush spreading from that fire in his chest, all the way to his cheeks. _Oh,_ will he never get tired of kissing Thanatos. “That’s what I lov—”

Thanatos pauses, looking hesitant, eyes shining ever-more-gold as the words nearly slip from his careful grasp. 

For Zagreus, _love_ comes easy. It flows freely from him, touching everyone in the Underworld, even those who might otherwise viewed as lost causes. For a place so morose, the realm of the dead is rich with love, and Zagreus, kind-hearted and warm as the floods of Asphodel, is cause for that. 

Thanatos, on the other hand, struggles with love, with the messiness that comes from having a beating heart. Mortal souls, reaped from their bodies, brought to a peaceful death, are easy. No matter the struggle, no matter the grief and angst and anger and fear, with very, very few exceptions, the souls that Thanatos takes to the afterlife are simple. But the complexities of the hearts and souls of gods, especially gods in love, were new to Thanatos, and becoming comfortable with his own heart was a long, slow learning process for him. 

For the both of them. 

Among all the Underworld’s subjects, it is well-known that Zagreus is not a patient man. He did not have enough patience for his previous job in the administrative chamber, he did not have enough patience when he and Megara were exclusive, and he barely has enough patience when cutting a violent swathe through his father’s realm. 

But for Thanatos, he _must_ be patient. He would not rush Thanatos into a shared _I love you._ Not when they had all of eternity before them to grow into what made them so inexorably drawn, that is, the immortal, intertwining of their hearts, of their souls, of their dominions: of life and death. 

“I love you,” is what Zagreus says, and he kisses Thanatos again. For in that moment, there was no more need for words. 

\---

The next time Zagreus rampages through his father’s realm, he is careful to ensure that Demeter will grant him her favor. He arms himself with her old fighting gloves and tucks her keepsake into a pouch at his waist, just to be thorough. As he speeds through Tartarus, moving so quick that the chambers begin to blur around him, he feels her influence building—a chill in the air, a renewed energy emanating from Malphon, snowflakes falling at the edge of his vision. It is not long before Zagreus approaches an out-of-place patch of snow-specked grass among the tiles: a clear gift from the Goddess of Seasons herself. 

“In the name of Hades,” says Zagreus, crouching to touch the snow, and before he can stand, she stands before him—or, at least, a vision of her does. 

“You wield Malphon in a way that makes me proud, Zagreus,” she says, and there is no denying the genuine fondness in her voice. “Now, how shall we make your blows more powerful, then?” 

“Grandmother Demeter, if it does not offend you so, I request another blessing,” he says, making sure to bow his head, to look as deferential as possible. Fond as his grandmother may be now, Zagreus is well aware of the consequences of rebuffing his family. “I ask, humbly, for your wisdom.”

“Well, of course, Little Sprout,” she says, almost sounding soft. Like the gentle crunch of fresh snowfall under flame-licked feet. “What ails you?” 

Though he knows he should not be, Zagreus is still nervous when he speaks. As if merely speaking into being the specter of a forgotten god was enough to bring him back to life. As if the stories the humans told each other were true. “The other day-or-night, I read of a god from long-ago. I couldn’t find a name, but he held sole dominion over life and death, both. You—you wouldn’t happen to know anything of him, would you?” 

The images of Demeter standing before him looks grave. She looks not unlike she did before the grand reunion of Olympus and the Underworld, when her heart was still healing and an endless winter was the only way she knew how to express that hurt. 

“It—it’s just,” he adds quickly, shifting from foot to foot, feeling stifled by her extended silence, and fully at the mercy of all of winter’s cold. For a moment, he can imagine what it must have been like for his mother. For he, too, wants to run from her solemn, icy gaze. “Being the God of Blood and Life, and all, I felt—I wanted to know more of who came before me.” 

As if suddenly realizing his worry, Demeter smiles, warm as she can. The ghostly vision of his grandmother strokes Zagreus’s cheek briefly, and as she does, all his anxieties about bringing the mysterious, disappeared elder god melt away. 

“I apologize for worrying you, Sprout. It’s just, I—well. I had all but forgotten, until you had spoken that old name back to me. But—yes. Yes, I am familiar with the God of Life and Death. I studied under him, but I do not remember much of him at all, I’m afraid to say. It was so long ago. I was just a sapling back then. Younger than you are, even now.”

She closes her eyes and sighs. Perhaps wistfully. Perhaps, hoping to return to a time when she was still learning, a time when she was young and naïeve and _green._ And perhaps, even still, there were things that she still hoped to forget. 

Things were different back then, after all. 

After a moment, Demeter opens her eyes, and the full weight of all her centuries shines through in her gaze, and she looks past Zagreus, towards a lifetime ago. 

“He was an odd one. He—he liked to talk to himself. I remember, when I asked about it, he just smiled at me and said it helped him think. I thought him odd at the time, but after Kore—” she catches herself, forcing herself to respect her daughter’s name. Forcing herself, even in her stubborn, worn-in ways, to be better. Zagreus smiles. “After your mother, _Persephone,_ after her mortal father died, I found myself talking to myself, too.” 

She sighs, and she pauses briefly, taking another moment to sort through the memories of her long, long lifetime. 

“What I remember most, though—” she starts, and even her usual regal timbre sounds smaller than it had before. “Is that he was kind. He was so very kind. I know it must sound silly now, but if you know the kind of parents that we had, if you know what we did in order to survive, you know that back then, kindness was scarce and hard to find. So—yes. He was strange, Little Sprout. He was strange, but he was kind.”

Though he is used to his grandmother’s candor, Zagreus is not used to such vulnerability from her. Given the soft-but-conflicted way that she casts her gaze beyond the moment they are sharing with one another, Demeter doesn’t seem to be used to such vulnerability, either. Zagreus’s mind races with more questions, but his heart, forever and always the stronger motivator of the two, tells him that it would be unwise and unkind to dig any further. For now, anyway. 

“Thank you, Grandmother Demeter,” he says, and he means it. Though she is far from him, somewhere in the bright halls of Olympus, and he is not sure if she would appreciate the gesture, Zagreus wishes he could hug her. “Truly.” 

She nods. “I just wish I could have offered you more, Grandson. But I take solace in knowing that though I remember very little of my mentor, he would have very, very much liked you.”

And then just like that, just as quickly as she appeared before him—intangible but no less present—Grandmother Demeter is gone, leaving Zagreus to fight his way through Hell once more, less alone, but no less full of questions. 

\--- 

“I see you ran into your grandmother,” is what Thanatos says, the moment he apparates into the lush Elysium fountain chamber where Zagreus has paused for a moment’s rest. “Learn anything interesting?” 

Zagreus does not move from where he lies, looking up at fields of bright, endless blue. “He was kind.” 

“Oh?”

Zagreus nods. “The God of Life and Death was strange, but he was kind. Kind enough for Grandmother to remember that about him, all these millennia later.”

Thanatos takes a seat next to him, pauldron and greaves clinking as he moves, like the toll of tiny bells. “Sounds like it’s fair to say that you’re continuing on in our predecessor’s footsteps, then.”

“You flatter me,” Zagreus smiles, and he reaches up, pulling Thanatos close enough to steal a kiss. They move as one, Zagreus moving upright, Thanatos back leaning to draw him in closer. Heat wells up between them, burning less like a hearth and more like a city-state razed to the ground, and just as full of potential to turn all-consuming.

They do not need to breathe. Not really. But when Thanatos pulls away, Zagreus can see his chest heaving. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Zagreus smiles, reveling in the way that Thanatos’s cheeks and lips are burnished gold with warm ichor thrumming wild underneath his skin. 

“It’s about last time.” Thanatos says, flicking his gaze to the side, briefly. “In your chambers.”

“Yeah?” Zagreus asks, playful, planting a gentle trail of kisses along Thanatos’s jawline as he speaks. 

”I’m—" Thanatos says, his tone deathly serious again, all of a sudden. “I’m sorry.”

Zagreus blinks, righting himself to look Thanatos head-on. That wasn’t what he was expecting. “Whatever for, Than?” 

Feelings, as always, are hard for Thanatos. His usually quick, precise grasp of language fails him, and he furrows his brow, fixing his eyes on a delicate patch of forget-me-nots growing along the river Lethe. Patient as ever, Zagreus twines his fingers with Thanatos’s, rubbing gentle, encouraging circles into the small of his wrist. They didn’t have much more time together—not really, not when Zagreus still had to make his way to the surface, and Thanatos had already taken a generous leave from his duty. But if it took Thanatos the rest of eternity, Zagreus would wait in that fountain chamber forever. 

Eventually, Thanatos swallows, and he takes a deep, steadying breath. Zagreus settles the weight of his palm against Thanatos’s, anchoring him, as if they weren’t careful enough, Thanatos would float off, unbidden, just like his twin brother. 

“I care about you, Zagreus. You make me feel things that I never thought possible. When I’m with you, I can understand why so many mortals do so many foolish, fatal things for love,” he starts. Thanatos, who has always been so much better at gifting still-beating centaur hearts than baring his own heart, is not used to vulnerability. Zagreus feels humbled, feels a swell of _love,_ seeing Thanatos open up before him like this. “I want you to know that.”

“I _do_ know that, Than. I do,” Zagreus murmurs, barely loud enough to be heard against the rush of the Lethe. “Even if you say it differently. I know. I’ll always know.” 

Thanatos’s eyes soften, and for a moment, Zagreus thinks that they will share, once more, in a kiss, finding themselves in excess of words. But instead, Thanatos’s soft, ever-familiar lips part in a soft, ambivalent sigh. “You deserve more than scrying me for proof of love, Zagreus. You deserve to hear it from me, how much you mean to me. In no uncertain terms. In—in those specific words.”

“I _know_ , Thanatos. But _you_ deserve to take your time. In case you haven’t noticed, it only took me a few centuries, but I think I’m learning patience,” Zagreus laughs. It was a risk, but it earns a smile from Thanatos—small though it may be—so he’s counting it as a win. “You don’t have to rush yourself for me.” 

To punctuate his point, Zagreus angles himself upward ever-so-slightly, just enough to press a gentle kiss on Thanatos’s forehead. Right on his brow. Right on the little spot where Thanatos carries his worry. A soft noise escapes him, and when he speaks again, his voice has dropped to a whisper. “I—well. Zagreus.” 

“That’s me,” Zagreus responds, just as low, but no less warm.

“I like you,” Thanatos says, slowly, as if they are souls soon to become shades. He shakes his head, bangs falling messily in his face as he does. When he speaks again, his words are rushed, a sudden pivot to correct himself. “No. I mean—” 

And then, just as quickly as the words came, Thanatos pulls away, gaze turned elsewhere, as if reacting to a call that only he can hear.

Zagreus does not let his face fall. 

“Damned timing,” Thanatos growls. “We’ll continue this later. I have to go. Fight on. I’ll see you at the House.”

Before Zagreus can futilely try to stop him, before he can even manage a quick goodbye, Thanatos is gone, leaving nothing but the scent of the surface, a scattering of bright red poppies, and a god-prince’s selfish, quick-to-heal heartache in his wake.

\---

With what little time that he has on the surface, Zagreus watches the sun rise, pink and smiling and hopeful over the deep, wine-dark ocean. He thinks about his predecessor, a god so kind but forgotten, all but disappeared from even immortal memory. He thinks about Thanatos, a god with dominion over death, who Zagreus knows he would risk a similar permanent, obliterative end for, if circumstances required it. He thinks about himself—a godling whose place in the universe has only recently become less murky, who only recently found himself the god of _something,_ whose domain feels just as alien to him as it feels familiar. 

And he thinks about that feeling, the strange, persistent whisper at the base of his skull begging that he dig deeper, even deeper than he thinks he has dug, into himself, into his own domain, into where he stands in the vastness of the cosmos. 

He can feel it in the burning soles of his feet, in his bones, in the ever-present buzz that—in his few moments of stillness—he can hear underneath the thrum of his fragile, immortal heart.

It’s strange, but not unfamiliar: a _someone else_ there, an ancient presence that should not exist, something broken, destroyed, and long-forgotten. But _there_ , beneath his skin _. Beneath him._

If Zagreus listens closely enough, if he focuses, he knows he will hear it beating, steady and unyielding, beneath Thanatos’s skin, too. 

And perhaps, Zagreus thinks, sharing the same echoes, knowing the background noise of their minds are playing the same tune—perhaps that is what love is. 

\---

Like so many times before, Zagreus dies. And like he will do so many times more, he drags himself from the pool of Styx, towels off as best he can, and sets off to traverse his father’s realm again. 

At least, that was the plan.

Now, seeing Thanatos standing shock-still—but no less restless—in his chambers, Zagreus abandons all of that. Anything before and anything after does not matter. All that matters—all that has ever mattered, all that will ever matter—is right in front of him. 

“Than—"

“I love you, Zagreus,” Thanatos blurts out, before Zagreus can say anything further, before either of them can hesitate any longer. 

The words seem to come as a shock to both of them, as if they escaped from beneath Thanatos’s watch, as if he hadn’t been struggling to put them together for who-knows-how-long now. 

Zagreus can’t help the wildfire-bright exuberance inside of him. He can’t help the smile that warms his face like a surface-world sunrise. He can’t help the paradoxical tears welling up in his eyes, threatening to overflow at any minute. He can’t help how he rushes over to Thanatos, stopping short of scooping Death up, bridal-style, into his arms. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Thanatos says, and he sounds a little unsure the second time around. But there’s still a second time, regardless. “I love you. _I love you._ ”

Who moves first is unclear, but it does not matter. Consumed by the power that is invoked with a confession of love, Zagreus and Thanatos pull each other closer in tandem, as if in a dance only they know the steps to. Drawn to one another, like moths to a flame, like the domain of death to the domain of life, Zagreus and Thanatos kiss, deep, passionate, and full _._ They kiss until they are breathless. They kiss like they are humans—like they must make most of their short, darling lifetimes. 

Thanatos’s fingers are deft as they strip Zagreus of his pauldron, belt, and chiton, in that order. The Prince of the Underworld does not struggle against Death’s cool touch, not this time, instead mirroring his actions, stripping Thanatos down to the skin—stripping him of his tension, of his doubt, of the walls he keeps up without realizing. Somehow, they make it to Zagreus’s bed, shedding jewelry and leggings and bracers as they go.

“Please,” Thanatos breathes, looking up at Zagreus like he is the only soul left in all creation. 

“Please what?” Zagreus murmurs, less a real question an act of confirmation. “What is it you need from me, Than?”

Thanatos’ pupils are blown huge, his gold eyes burning bright as suns. 

“ _Everything._ ” 

And that is all the confirmation that Zagreus needs. He wastes no time in taking Thanatos apart, running his mouth all along all the places he knows are sensitive, the places that make even Death begin to run hot. Thanatos rewards him in turn, in the form of lush words of praise when Zagreus begins to suck him off, and in his fingers threaded desperately through princely locks when Zagreus’s mouth brings him right up against the edge of orgasm. 

Zagreus is just as quick as he fingers Thanatos, his natural impatience warring with the addictive satisfaction of watching ever-cool God of Death tremble in heady, aching _need._ It would verge just on the edge of cruel, the way that Zagreus brings Thanatos to all but beg, if not for the gold flush blooming up from his chest to the very tips of his ears, if not for the half-whimpered _yeses_ and _mores_ and _theres,_ if not for the way that Thanatos, ever-sharp with his words until he is not, devolves into little more than choked-off noises and fragmentary sentences _._

“Please,” Thanatos murmurs once more, all his usual sharpness nowhere to be found. The Thanatos beneath Zagreus is pliant and tame, chasing the prince’s touch like he aches for it, like he’s desperate for it. 

“Please what, love?” Zagreus asks, his voice gentle and low and just a hair’s breadth away from trembling. He never feels more princely than he does in moments like this, burning hot as an inferno and with Death desperate underneath his gentle touch. 

When Thanatos speaks, breathy and full of want, night-dark pupils blown, his words almost seem as if they are not his own. “ _Make me whole._ ”

But just as before, Zagreus takes that as permission, as directions, as orders. After all—even, especially, laid out like this—who could deny Death?

He enters Thanatos slow, reveling in the heady rush of feeling that fucking Thanatos always gives him. Hands bracketed against Thanatos’s narrow waist, Zagreus begins to move, letting Thanatos’s mumbled praise and that familiar heat blooming between them guide his thrusts as he builds up a steady, breathy rhythm. 

“Fuck, Zag, I love you,” Thanatos breathes, eyes half-lidded, looking more beautiful than Zagreus could ever put words to. He does not try, instead, leaning in and kissing Thanatos, sloppy as the words that spill from the God of Death, unbidden. “ _Fuck,_ do I love you. I love you, Zagreus. _I love you._ ” 

As he rocks his hips against Thanatos, Zagreus feels something inside him break open, flooding every inch of him and threatening to spill out, to overflow, to consume him and Thanatos both. It is a heat unlike any that he has felt before, more intense than a magma pool, than the surface world’s too-bright sun, than his own unextinguishable inner flame. The intense, impossible energy that consumes Zagreus feels closer to the birth of the universe itself: just as enormous, just as sacred. 

As he murmurs Thanatos’s name—desperate, choked-out, but no less full of love—Zagreus realizes, as if it were a primordial secret revealed to him as a reward for his cleverness: 

He feels whole, again. He feels whole, for the first time. 

With that feeling—that _knowing_ —slotted into place, the ever-present whispers in the back of his mind reaches a crescendo. The hectic thrum of his immortal heart syncs up with Thanatos’s, until they cannot be distinguished. Until there is only one. 

And _he_ is born, again, for the first time. 

\---

He blinks awake with a startle. The bed underneath him is far, far too small for a god of his stature, and he finds himself in an uncomfortable tangle of arms and legs and wings, scrambling to find purchase on a piece of furniture that creaks dangerously close to collapse with even the smallest, slowest of movements. 

For a moment, he wonders how long he’s been asleep. For a moment, he wonders of his domains, of the responsibilities he has left unattended, of the young gods and mortals who he foolishly kept under his care. But he doesn’t wonder long. 

Just as quick as he woke, he remembers. He remembers the young gods. He remembers the cruelty of their parents. He remembers the war. He remembers being cleaved apart. 

He remembers. He remembers and remembers. As if it had happened before him mere moments ago, he remembers everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> vaguely, briefly, kind of based off a line from a song from the hedwig soundtrack which is itself based off plato's telling of the myth of aristophanes. i refuse to go back to the original texts and you cannot make me, thank you. 
> 
> this fic is sitting in my documents at about 60-70% done, so it'll be posting in the next couple of weeks, depending on, you know [gestures around at literally everything]. i might even add in a bonus fourth chapter to be _really_ self-indulgent. 
> 
> thanks to the lovely scarlett for beta reading, even if not in gay greek mythology hell. 
> 
> find me [here](https://twitter.com/aka_spacedog) when spring has finally arrived.
> 
> next up: (not) a creation story.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is not a creation story.

The world and all its occupants were still young when he was born. In his ever-brief childhood, he had few infrequent companions: the ever-busy Nyx, when he toddled about below in his home below the surface, in what was then a shabby excuse for a kingdom, even if it were the Kingdom of the Dead; the similarly-busy Gaia, when he had outgrown his down feathers and his wings beat strong and steady, and he could finally, finally make it up to the surface without assistance. And every so often, if he was lucky, the Primordial Originator, Chaos themself, would draw him back to their realm, back to the abyss from which he was born, if only for a moment that was always much, much too brief. 

Perhaps that was how he came into his dominion so quickly. Not because of any mandate from the Fates. Not  _ only  _ because he was a curious, precocious godling. But because, with his too-many, mismatched eyes and his too-many, gangly limbs and his big, obtrusive wings, he was so unlike anyone he had ever met before. 

Because, even with primordial gods half-raising him, he was just ever so  _ lonely.  _

**_\---_ **

The not-quite-young godling gladly took on his domain as soon he was strong enough to accept it as his own, as soon as he could stand tall and announce himself as the God of Life and Death. It kept him busy, presiding over all life and death, which, in turn, drew him further from the few other elder gods shaping the heavens and the earth and all the kingdoms below and in between.

But even if it kept him alone, the God of Life and Death’s domain—the very thing he threw himself into after a too-short childhood filled with too few companions—did not quite leave him lonely. The God of Life and Death bloomed as he mastered his domains, growing broad-shouldered and confident in his form as he found uses in his odd anatomy: four arms grew strong, as if built with the intention of reaping souls and sowing life all at once. Four mismatched eyes kept him alert, even in the darkest depths of the Underworld. 

But the greatest changes that came with true godhood came in his sense of self, as he quickly, quietly outgrew the desperate ache of yearning that he carried throughout his young godhood. And like most new things he had come to learn, it came, in part, with the territory.

Death, despite the heavy and near-malicious tales that mortals spun of it, was far from a lonesome domain. There was tragedy to it, undoubtedly, but such tragedy was far outweighed by the possibilities that death produced: possibilities of pain and suffering and misery, finally ended. Possibilities of joyful reunions between families, between comrades, between lovers. Possibilities, even, of new starts. Death was full of possibilities, no matter how miserable mortals painted it. 

And if nothing else, the dead were nice company. Even if, most of the time, their fear of the Underworld and all its unknowns was enough to strike speech from even the most affable of former mortals. Even if, most of the time, the God of Life and Death found himself detailing the goings-on of an ever-chaotic Underworld to quiet shades, leading one-sided conversations that quickly became conversations with himself. 

No, even as the more somber half of his domain, death did not leave the God of Life and Death lonely. And the brighter half of his domain, life and all the living, further led him away from ever-constant heartache. 

Because death—even with all its possibility and potential—paled in comparison to  _ life. _

The bright, exciting domain of life took so, so many forms, and the God of Life and Death adored and lavished in it all: the making of new kinds of life, the birth and rebirth of green things year after year, the unparalleled vibrancy of mortals. 

The mortals, especially, he adored. 

They didn’t pray to him. They did not make epics or paintings or ballads in his name. They did not build temples in his image—they didn’t even have a set name for him, just a vague sense of sacredness, of importance, of both his domains. 

(As it was, in those days, elder gods chose their own names, and he—in an act of holy hubris—never ended up settling on one of his own. 

Some mortals called him  _ Eros _ , but that never felt quite right, and the stories that the humans would eventually spin of a primordial Eros were completely incorrect, anyway.

Gaia gave him a little pet name,  _ Poppy,  _ for how he would cycle between the Kingdom of the Dead and the Kingdom of the Living, every day his own form of birth and rebirth. That endearment, reserved for Gaia and Gaia alone, could never stand as his  _ real  _ name. And so, he never named himself.  _ It’s not a concern for now,  _ he would think, laboring under the presumption that even gods were guaranteed futures.) 

Regardless of the mortal world’s relative ignorance as to his existence, regardless of their inability to even worship his nonexistent name on their tongues, the God of Life and Death adored them regardless, joyfully gathering the sacred offerings that mortals didn’t realize that they were making to him. Mortals loved him, though they did not know him. And he loved them back. 

In every way he could.

Summertime quickly became his favorite, as the brightness and warmth that Gaia could afford the world made the mortals just so  _ full  _ of life. He would make himself small, two-eyed, two-armed, and wingless, and he would dance with the ones not-yet-old, the ones who had lived to weather the most delicate years, but young enough to still think that they would live forever. These were the ones who radiated mortality, whose absolute, incomparable joy at being alive gave the God of Life and Death a hint as to what it must have felt like, how free it was, to be mortal. 

These young ones, who festivals were all but made for—these were the mortals whose lust for life made them absolutely, incredibly  _ intoxicating. _

_ Making love,  _ they called it, that exciting little dance that mortals did that sometimes—if they were caring very, very much or, paradoxically, caring not nearly enough—would make life. And when he would be lying with a mortal, when they would love him, when they would worship him, that is when they came closest to seeing him as a god. That was when they would love him the most. 

That was when he would realize that making love to mortals was, in many ways, just a way for him to worship as his own private altar, the altar of his own domain—of  _ both  _ domains—to dedicate his endless stores of love to himself. 

He didn’t invent love. At least, he’s pretty sure that he didn’t. But all the same, the God of Life and Death understood love intimately. Before Aphrodite, before all the tragic heroes who died for love, the God of Life and Death knew love. He was his own truest love, eons before Narcissus would stumble upon his own reflection. 

And perhaps, like Narcissus, that was what sealed his fate.

**\---**

The God of Life and Death made it a point to spend as little time among the Titans as possible. He did not pretend to understand the goings-on in Olympus. They did not concern him. His job took place below their palace in the sky, in the realm of mortals and no-longer-mortals. 

This only changed by degrees when he learned about the children. 

Like their parents before them, the children were powerful immortals who would one day rule over all of creation. Like their parents before them, the children were trapped under the oppressive watch of their father. 

( _ He detests them for leaving their mother’s womb, he might as well swallow them up,  _ he had heard someone joke, somewhere, sometime, long, long before he knew the extent to the father-Titan’s cruelty.)

Like their parents before them, the young gods were destined to revolt. 

Preordained by the Fates or not, a father could not treat his children the way Cronus raised the young gods and not expect anything but his own violence turned back on him. 

**\---**

On a day that was no-longer-winter but not-quite-spring, the God of Life and Death planted life and reaped the souls of the dead in equal measure. It always was a harsh time, that liminal space between seasons. Plant life would awaken from their months-long slumber, only to get felled by a cold snap, a surprise snowstorm, an example of cruelties never quite intended to be so cruel. His feet—then, not flame-licked, not as they are now—did not crunch through the snow so much as they grazed it, leaving little evidence of his existence, save for save for saplings destined to one day become mighty pines and oaks and poplars.

On that not-quite-winter day, the God of Life and Death found himself close enough to Olympus to know that it was best to keep his guard up. He was close enough to the self-styled rulers of the heavens to know to be on high alert. Though the Titans welcomed him on their mountain, he knew better to accept the invitation unless absolutely necessary, and he knew far better than to arrive in their kingdom unannounced and unarmed. 

Violence was not unfamiliar to him, of course. But he did not involve himself in the affairs of the Titans. Not when he knew how quickly their allegiances turned. Not when he knew what violence they were willing to commit to their own  _ families,  _ elders and children alike _. _

Had he not known he was at the base of Olympus, he may not have realized he was being followed, shadowed by some force not yet clever enough to hide their tracks. As he continued to reap and sow, and sow and reap, whoever was following him continued making the mistakes of a novice hunter. It was this naiveté that told him all he needed to know. 

The Titans might have sought violence in excess, but they at least knew stealth. The being tailing the God of Life and Death was no danger to him, whether they were aware of that or not. He would let himself be observed, so long as he was left untouched. 

Eventually, being followed grew tiring. From where he had crouched, planting what would one day be an oak fit for the mountain, he rose to his full height, his huge, powerful wings beating once, in a quiet show of what strength he was capable of. 

“I’m going back to the Underworld soon,” he said to his shadow. His tone was its usual low, gentle calm. It traveled through the snowy forest like a ripple, like a whisper. “If you have anything to say to me, now would be the best time.”

For a moment, the forest was quiet as the dead. 

That silence was pierced by a soft crunch of snow, and The God of Life and Death turned toward the sound, not even expending the energy to put his guard up. Standing before him was a young godling, hair gathered up in flower-specked plaits, wearing a thin cloak reminiscent of spring buds. One of the Titans’ children, snuck down from her parents’ wrathful gaze. 

“I mean you no harm, sir,” she said, stepping out from behind a tree she had attempted to hide herself behind. She spoke proudly, like royalty, no doubt trained into her from her very birth.

Carefully, he watched the godling, all four eyes trained on her face. There was nothing about her that indicated deception, and even less that might have indicated her intent to drag him into something on the mountain. He nodded at her, though it was less a greeting and more an acknowledgment of her existence. She took that as permission to continue speaking. 

“My name is Demeter, sir. I am fated to preside over the seasons one day. I am one of the few of my siblings to have learned of my domain,” the young goddess said, expression steady. Unshatterable, even after being discovered. He had to admit, her confidence in her birthright was commendable, if a little haughty. “Gaia has taught me all I can learn from her. Let me learn from you.”

Looking back on their encounter, he cannot say what motivated him to make the decision he did. Perhaps he was making a strategic decision. Perhaps, in that moment, he saw the appeal of having some of his duties delegated to a ward. Or perhaps he saw the loneliness and desperation beneath the confident words and the proud way she upturned her chin. 

Perhaps, in a way, the God of Life and Death saw in young Demeter a version of himself as a godling, left too alone to be young for very long. 

Whatever his rationale was in that moment, he has since let slip to time. But what he does remember is simply nodding, and the way that her eyes lit up, bright as a field in bloom as he answered simply: 

“Okay.” 

**\---**

Settling into mentorship flowed naturally for the God of Life and Death. It almost surprised him, given his brief, lonely childhood and the intentional distance he kept between himself and Olympus. 

But as he began showing her all the different forms that life took—all the ways that it shifted and changed with the seasons, with the times—something inside him began to spark bright. The more time he spent with his little sapling of a ward, the more fond he grew of her. 

The God of Life and Death never sired any children. Mentoring Demeter was just about as close as he got to raising a child. 

For though he never thought of her as  _ his surrogate daughter,  _ he was beginning to think of her, alongside the primordial Chaos and all the other elder gods who he saw far less frequently than his ward, as  _ kin.  _

**\---**

Summer quickly began to arrive on quick, playful winds—a marked change from Gaia’s slow, long drag-out of summer from spring. The God of Life and Death took it as a sign of Demeter beginning to understand her domain, of his careful lessons making an impression on her, of her coming into her vast, Fate-ordained powers. 

That, or perhaps she was just aiming to ogle at some handsome young farmers and their boys, glistening almost godlike under the perfect heat of an early summer sun. Perhaps, he thought, as he waited for her beneath a fig tree just far enough from Olympus to evade the Titans’ nigh-panoptic gaze, that was where she was. Perhaps she had forgotten her mentor, having shirked their usual lessons in godhood for a taste of mortality. 

Not that he, of all immortals, would blame her. Not when he was so very  _ fond  _ of the humans and the way they chased after life, drawing from it—from  _ him _ —every ounce of pleasure that there was to take. 

And  _ my _ , was it wonderful to let mortals take from him. Was it ever wonderful, indeed, to be worshipped.

His mind drifted, then, to the next festival, to the next summer night spent among humans, to the next moment of intimate ritual where he was the sole object of some beautiful mortal’s worship. It sent a heady heat rushing throughout his whole body, something just on the edge of holy. 

“ _ Yes _ ,” he said to himself, trying very, very hard not to get too excited about the thought of it. Not when still had lessons to give, a godling to train. “Yes, that sounds perfect. Tonight. I can go into town tonight, find one of those nice farmers, maybe bring along some of their nice friends—it’ll be fun. It’ll be more than fun. It’ll be—” 

The sound of someone rustling through the underbrush cut his fantasy short. He sighed, running two hands through his hair as the other two straightened out his chiton. As much as she needed to get better at stealth, The God of Life and Death, at least in that moment, was glad that his young ward all but announced her presence. “Sir?” 

He smiled at her, playfully peeking out from behind the fig tree’s spadelike leaves. “Hello, Sapling.” 

She furrowed her eyebrows, eyeing him suspiciously as she approached. “Who were you talking to?”

“No one,” he replied, casually. 

“No one?” she echoed. __

“No one but myself,” he said.

She pursed her lips, and he could recognize that barely-hidden skepticism, judgement, ungenerosity. It was a nasty habit of hers, learned from her parents and encouraged by her siblings. He made a note to address it more directly some other time. 

“It helps me think. Work through ideas,” he said with a shrug. Two arms reached up and plucked a couple figs, before he settled into a seated position, tucking his wings close against his back as he did so. “Make plans. You should try it sometime.”

For a moment, it seemed like Demeter would press him on it, but something flashed across her face—perhaps curiosity, perhaps recognition, perhaps just the resigned familiarity that comes with knowing someone’s oddities—and she said nothing. Instead, she just sat down beside him, petals scattering about her like colorful little snowflakes. 

“Well. Regardless,” she said. She sat straight-backed and proper, even as she relaxed. “My apologies for the lateness, sir.” 

He nodded, less a means of accepting her apology and more a way of acknowledging her presence, a way of showing he appreciated her by his side. Wordlessly, he handed her one of the figs. She held it delicately, as if it was an offering, as if it were more than just a fig. “Ogling the young mortals down in the valley, then? You almost had me worried, Miss Demeter. You’re usually never late. I almost climbed the mountain to look for you.” 

“Would you do that for me, sir?” she asked. Her voice was quiet, almost unsure. It had never sounded so small before. “If I were to disappear, or if you knew that something wasn’t right?”

“Of course,” he replied, without missing a beat. 

_ Why wouldn’t he?  _ She was, after all, his pupil, his ward, the closest thing he ever had to his own child. But he did not vocalize this. Not after he remembered just how little she had come to expect from the other elders in her life, and answered his own question. 

“There—there are some humans I have grown fond of,” she admitted. There was no hiding the blush that tinged her cheeks, ever-briefly. “But that is not why I was late.”

_ Ah.  _ Half-right. He would take that as a win, he thought, as he bit into his own fig, chewing as he spoke. “Oh?”

She nodded. “Zeus and Poseidon wanted to talk to me.”

“Your brothers?” he asked. He remembered them, briefly, from his few visits to the mountain. Big and bold and boisterous, likely because they would be inheriting greatness by any means necessary. 

The face Demeter made in response is one he has since committed to memory. She looked like someone who just discovered they had stepped in something quite unpleasant. It was one of the few moments that she let her poise slip—one of the few moments she actually looked her age. “ _ Foster-brothers. _ ”

“Right,” he said, trying hard not to laugh aloud at her sour expression. He finished off his fig quickly, juice dripping down his palm. Hers remained untouched. “About?”

And just as quickly as she had let herself a moment of childishness, Demeter’s usual formality returned, this time, with an intensified seriousness. “They knew I was going to see you. They wanted to come with me.”

The God of Life and Death, too, grew serious then. Serious as his title might suggest he carried himself. He did not consider himself a tutor for hire for the Olympians on the mountain. He  _ especially  _ did not have any interest in wrangling obnoxious godlings who already felt themselves entitled to all creation. 

But more than anything—he did not want to find himself in the middle of the Titans and their children. As much as he loved Demeter, he would not become involved in the affairs of a family that was not even his own. 

Too much time passed without him speaking, and Demeter continued. She almost looked nervous, even. “Don’t worry. I told them that you were  _ very  _ picky about the wards you took on. They tried to say that it was fated that between the three of them—well, those two and Hades—one of them would inherit lordship over the Kingdom of the Dead, and because none of them have come into their dominions yet, all three of them would need to learn from you.”

“And what do you think about that?” he asked, his tone level, but treading carefully, still. 

“Frankly, I think they’re just looking for a way to gain favor with you. I’ve heard whispers of  _ rebellion.  _ I think they think if they ingratiate themselves to you, it will convince you to fight alongside them.”

“I see,” is all he said, aspersions validated once more. 

“You—” Demeter started, eyes narrowing ever so slightly. “You won’t say anything, will you? You know, I wouldn’t trust that knowledge to everyone.” 

He did not have to ask for clarification as to  _ what knowledge  _ she meant. Anything she shared in their little conversation—even her carefully-growing fondness for humans—could be,  _ would be _ , used as a weapon against her, covertly and overtly both. 

“I’m humbled, Miss Demeter. Know your secret is safe with me,” he said, playfully pressing a finger to his lips. This earned a smile from her, equal parts amused and relieved. 

“Thank you, sir,” she said, gently placing her hand—warm as the summer breeze glancing across their skin, warm as the sun beating down on sweat-dappled bodies in the fields below them—on one of his elbows. 

“Always, Sapling,” he said, and it was tempting, the idea of wrapping her up in a big, four-armed hug, but he knew her well enough to know that the extent to her physical affection extended to her hand on his elbow, and no more than that. So he pivoted, directing them towards an out—towards their lesson. Straightforwardness. Regularity. She always appreciated that. “Now. Why don’t you show me what you’ve been working on?” 

“Yes, well,” she said, “I’ve been working with heat lately.”

“I would hope so. It  _ is  _ summer,” he said, with a smile. She did not laugh, but he did not expect her to. Young Demeter  _ did  _ smile, though, which was something. He nodded at the fig he handed her earlier, still cradled gently in her lap. “Can I see?” 

Demeter nodded, confidence clear in the slight tip of her chin, in the telegraphed ways that she moved. Though she was still coming into her powers, Demeter carried herself as someone who had mastered them, perhaps a result of her being one of the few children whose powers had manifested. 

The God of Life and Death appreciated that confidence, that independence, that strength about her. It made her a good student. But in many ways, as he was much more aware than she, those qualities of hers could also very, very easily turn into her most glaring flaws. 

As they did in that moment they shared on that warm summer day.

Like a cub unaware of its own bite strength, or a young scorpion unaware of the toxicity of its sting, Demeter, young and bright and self-confident to a fault, was ignorant to the way she was choking the life out of the little shoots she had coaxed out from the rich, fertile fruit. In her excitement to show what she had learned, in her excitement to rush the sprout into producing summer fruit, she managed to scorch even the heat-hardy fig plant blooming into being before them. 

“Hey,” he said, his hand on her forearm acting as a clear signal to stop. Obediently, she did so, emotions flitting quick and subtle across her features. “Easy.”

Demeter did not startle, not even as a young god. Not like her siblings might have. But from the way that she looked at her mentor, he could tell that—though they trusted one another dearly—something within her, despite her knowing better,  _ flinched.  _

When he spoke again, his tone was flat. He regretted such an affect the moment he saw her face fall, ever-so-slightly. “You need to be much more careful, Miss Demeter.” 

“I apologize, sir,” she said, the words rolling off her tongue easily, with familiarity. He sighed, shook his head, and beckoned her closer, careful to leave his face and posture open. Welcoming. Harmless. The God of Life and Death, in his role as mentor, made himself as gentle as a puppy for his ward, hoping that she would trust him enough to see he was far from her wrathful parents, that there would be no violent punishment for a mistake of youth. 

“Little Sapling, I’m not mad at you. This is part of your learning,” he said, his words much more direct, but no less kind. “If you are to be working within my domain, you need to remember to curb yourself. Your role as steward of the seasons is all about finding balance. Life thrives with warmth and sunlight, but too much will leave things to wither and die. Even tough things, like fig trees.”

Gently, ever-gently, he brought two hands to the fig sprout. Making life was easy. Making things dead was even easier. Making dead things alive, though. That took just a  _ bit _ more effort. But the God of Life and Death was nothing if not good at his job. 

With a flick of his wings and a powerful flash of pale green energy, the little shoots sprung back to life, a little wilted, a little bent, but alive still. 

“I can’t do that for everything,” he said, the words coming out a little softer than he’d intended. If he was tired, it was less because of the effort it took to bring something so small as a sprout back from the dead, and more because it was hard to see Demeter shrink from her usual posture. But he had to drive the point home. After all, though he might not have known just how limited their days together were at the time, he  _ did  _ know that he couldn’t be by her side forever. “You must have a careful hand with the heat, Sapling. And with the cold, it’s the same thing. The land needs winters. They allow life to go dormant for a little while. Winters allow for quiet and rest. But sickness flourishes in winter. So too can despair.”

When he looked back at her, the God of Life and Death did not see fear or grief or anger in his pupil’s eyes. Instead, he saw something very different. He saw awe, plain on her face as the flowers forever blooming in her hair. She, too, was a god, but in that moment, it almost felt like Demeter was a supplicant, like their relationship had transformed, ever-briefly, into worship by another name. 

When she spoke again, she did not say much. All she said, all she seemingly  _ could  _ say, were two words, holding within them weight, a promise, a benediction. “I understand.”

And all he could do is nod and hope that she did. “Good—good. Well then. In that case, I think that’s a good place to stop for today.” 

That lesson was much, much more brief than previous ones, but in truth, there was not much more he could offer her beyond that knowledge—at least, not until she began to internalize that lesson. As he stood, he gathered up a handful of figs for her to take back to the mountain. They were perfectly shaped and just-ripened, as if molded by divinity. 

Just as he turned to leave, slipping into the skin of a mortal version of himself, Demeter stopped him, calling after him with one last question, one last thought. “Oh, sir?” 

“Yes?” he asked, looking at her with only two mismatched eyes, the only outward indicator of his godhood in that smaller, human stature of his. 

“The warmth and the cold, summer and winter, all those are the domain of life. Will you teach me about death?”

Death was not fated to be her domain. Little Demeter would not inherit—or have foisted upon her—the Kingdom of the Dead. But death was inexplicably tied to the changing of the seasons. In what little time she could spare, Gaia taught the God of Life and Death all the intimate ways that death was tied up with the land, the water, the cycles of the moon, the rotation of the planets. It was inevitable that the Goddess of Seasons would have to become familiar with death. 

Even still. 

He thought about the Titans. He thought about the whispers of rebellion among the young gods. He thought about the rage he glimpsed in their eyes in his brief visits to the mountaintop—a rage that, in flashes, he saw in Demeter herself.

The God of Life and Death did not fear for his own safety. After all, he did not involve himself in the affairs of Titans. But his eventual answer was still a deflection. Not because he was afraid—but because, as with every decision he made about his young ward—he wanted to do better by her than anyone had ever done by him.

“Perhaps,” he answered, ever-diplomatic, “Some other time.”

He smiled at her as he refused her. It was simultaneously the kindest thing he could have done and nothing but a practice in delaying the inevitable. 

After all, she would learn of death firsthand soon enough. 

**\---**

War exploded on the mountain, and it was like the world split open. 

The young gods found their domains in the crucible of war, coming into near-unfathomable powers through conquest, through blood. 

And like with every war—heavenly or human or something in between—mortals, without even being directly involved in the conflict, bore the brunt of the casualties. 

It kept him busy, ferrying armfuls of souls down from the surface world to the Kingdom of the Dead. There were so many careless casualties that, for a while, the balance of the Earth found itself upended. For a horrible, hopeless period of time, death began to overtake life, leaving the God of Life and Death floundering, struggling to keep pace over the vastness of his domains. 

Thinking back, he doesn’t know when he managed to find rest in the midst of that great, heavenly war. But he managed a brief respite, long enough to settle underneath a familiar outcrop of oaks and pines and poplars. 

“Just a moment,” he said to himself, letting his eyes rest, but never letting his guard down. “A moment, and I’ll be up again.” 

So starved was the God of Life and Death for that restful moment that he managed to startle, jumping into a fighting stance the moment he heard a voice calling out to him. 

“Sir.” 

“Demeter,” he breathed, and he let his defenses drop. For a breath, a blink, he was able to truly relax—to imagine, if only ever-so-briefly, that the war above was not threatening to burn the world alive. 

“I can’t stay,” she said, plainly. There was something conflicted in her face. Something like fear, like anger, like understanding, like hopeless hope—all coalesced in one look. But there was not hate. She did not hate him for leaving her to fight her siblings’ war. That, at the very least, he found some comfort in. “I just needed to see you once more.”

The weight fear that _once more_ held was not lost to him. 

The God of Life and Death, guardian of all living, of all dead, born to the Underworld and distant witness to the first great war of the Titans, did not involve himself in the affairs of Olympus. 

But he would not let his ward die. Not when he could help it. 

“Come,” he said, beckoning her close. Ever-dutiful a ward, even after half a war and a lifetime of elders disappointing, Demeter approached. In that familiar outcropping, in the forest where they first met, the Goddess of Seasons stood before her mentor, the fear of death shining clear in her eyes. 

He leaned in, gently pressing a kiss to her forehead. It was a kiss unlike any he had granted before; far from how he might kiss one of his mortal lovers, the God of Life and Death kissed Demeter like he had seen mortal parents kiss their children, like he had been kissed by Gaia—the closest thing he had to a mother-figure—many, many eons ago. This kiss was different ever still, imbued with the power of an elder god and having glowed a gentle green before fading out in a blink. 

“What did you just do?” she asked, quietly. If she still felt wracked by terror, she did a good job hiding it. 

“I granted you a boon. A blessing. A means to keep you safe,” he murmured, feeling the weight of his many years weighing heavy on his shoulders. “You will not die in your war against the Titans, Sapling. You will not die by your foster-parents’ hands.”

Gathering that same energy up into his palm, he shaped something from nothing, life from thin air: a bright red poppy, fully-grown, fully-bloomed, and imbued with enough of his power to act as a tether, as coil, as something that could weather the war enough to keep he and Demeter connected. 

“If you find yourself thinking my blessing has not been enough, call for me,” he said, gently curling her small fingers—armored in a vicious-looking pair of fighting gloves—so that it would not slip her trembling grasp.

She did not speak. She did not offer him a hug or gush gratitude, but the way she looked up at him—brave beyond her years and so full of determination that the tears welling up in her eyes began to take on a different tenor—spoke volumes. And for him, it was thanks enough. 

“Now go from here,” he said, voice low and serious as he had ever been. “Before the war follows you down.” 

**\---**

How much time passed after their encounter in that grove is lost to him. Everything between that encounter and what would become an unexpected goodbye would be lost to everyone but Demeter—if it has not, too, been displaced and rewritten over with the passage of time. 

But what the God of Life and Death  _ does _ remember is the exhaustion. He remembers all the lives lost. He remembers his desperate scramble to make sure humanity could continue to survive beyond a war not even of their own making. 

And he remembers, even more clearly, being  _ called.  _ He remembers Demeter’s familiar voice beckoning for him, not from a half-hidden spot in the forest, but from some place beyond—as if her voice rung out from the inside of his own head. 

On swift, powerful beats of his vast wings he rushed up to Olympus, breaking through cloud cover with such swiftness that it left dewdrops in his hair. His blade was out at the ready before he even touched down, and when his arrival was met with stillness, he felt his feathers prickling up on high alert. 

That is, until he saw Demeter, his ward, sitting at the foot of some marble stairs, covered in ichor and rubble, but alive. Whole.

“It’s done,” she murmured, her voice quiet. Quiet, almost, to the point of breaking. Her physical form had not changed, but she looked much, much older than the Demeter he had seen last. 

“Oh, Sapling,” he breathed, and when he reached out to envelop her in a hug for the first time, for the  _ only  _ time, she did not pull away. 

**\---**

So many young godlings had died in the war, cursed to be forgotten to time, cursed to be locked out of even inaccurate retellings of history. Cursed to be lost, even from myth. 

The God of Life and Death gathered up their souls, too. 

He did not tremble at the glares from the survivors. Nor did he pay much mind to the spiteful whispers shared between the new, young rulers of the mountaintop. 

After all, he thought, foolish in his generosity, what vengeance could a group of godlings enact on an elder god—the guardian of their mortal worshippers—with dominion over life and death? 

**\---**

When the God of Life and Death was summoned again to Olympus, he knew that something was not right from the moment his feet touched down. It was quiet again, but there was no serenity in that quiet. In absence of any noise, foreboding filled the space that the silence left, telegraphing the disaster soon to befall the elder god. 

“Demeter?” he called out, thick eyebrows furrowing together. “Sapling?” 

Before he could speak another word, before he could retreat to the safety of the familiar, chaotic sprawl of the Underworld, the God of Life and Death was knocked back by an arrow lodging itself right in the hollow of his neck, right above his collarbone. 

“Got him!” called out a young goddess, familiar only insofar as she was  _ not  _ Demeter. The arrow lodged in the God of Life and Death’s neck was barbed, and from the way that his head began to swim, it was tipped with something toxic. Likely a holdover from the war with the Titans. It was intended to kill. 

As quick as he could with poison thrumming through his veins, he snapped the arrow shaft just enough to get it out of his face. It wouldn’t have been any use to try digging it out on his own, anyway. He would drag himself to Gaia, or to Nyx, or to all-seeing Chaos when he escaped Olympus, he thought to himself, denial a much stronger drug than whatever the young gods had hit him with. 

It took him far too long to draw his own blade. The poison was a powerful one. By the time he fell into a defensive crouch, he was surrounded by a stable of young gods out for blood. 

The godlings of Olympus had advantages in spades. They outnumbered him. They knew the lay of the land. They had their ambush planned _.  _ They were young. They were still riding the high of patricide. 

They had nothing left to lose. 

He never stood a chance. Elder god or not.

For someone poisoned and ambushed and outnumbered, he still fought impressively. He managed to incapacitate one of the godlings—Helios, Demeter’s one blood-brother, regrettably—and left deep, devastating injuries to some of the others. Even divinity would not heal the gashes and gouges he left on some of the young gods. Even their status as new rulers would not erase those scars. 

But despite his best efforts, the God of Life and Death quickly came to realize that he would not be leaving the mountaintop. His wings dragged behind him, heavy and useless as more arrows rained down on him, each one just as venomous as the arrow lodged in his throat. Try as he may, the elder god would not be returning home to the Underworld, unless, he thought, to become one with the nothingness of Chaos’s void once more. 

After a sloppy, miscalculated thrust, the God of Life and Death fell to Poseidon’s vicious sword strike—in no part aided by the exhaustion that came with parrying attacks from five vengeful gods and the poison eating up his insides.

The only consolation, in the moment and in memory, is that Demeter was not among the ambush. 

“ _ You could have helped us, _ ” Zeus growled, as he came to loom over the God of Life and Death, pressing his weapon against the elder god’s chest. His shield glowed angry, electricity crackling dangerous and golden. 

The worst part of it all wasn’t the weight of that lightning-spark shield on his chest. The worst part wasn’t Poseidon’s ever-sharp swordpoint pressed against the apple of his throat, sitting a mere breath away from piercing straight through the God of Life and Death’s already-bloody neck, or the poison making his whole body burn. 

The worst part was that the young gods were right. 

He knew that the Titans were cruel. He knew the violence they were capable of. He offered Demeter shelter from the storm. But that was not enough. That was far from enough. 

The young gods were right. 

But he would never give them the pleasure of hearing that from him.

“So, what do you expect to do?” he asked the young gods, calm even as he faced his own extinction. His usually-velveteen voice had been transformed into a breathy groan, a death rattle, ringing unnatural and jarring in his ears. A poisoned arrow to one’s trachea would likely do that, he thought to himself, mirthlessly. “Rend me limb from limb, just like you did to your parents? All for what? To become the gods of nothing and no one?”

“That would be too kind for you,” said the goddess with the bow. What was her name?  _ Helena?  _ No, that wasn’t right. His thoughts had grown unfocused, incoherent. At the time, he struggled to stay awake and aware, but somehow, the memory of that moment is hyperreal, seared into his consciousness like a brand. 

“Where is your foster-sister?” he rasped, as the coppery, wet sensation of his own viscera began to bubble up in his mouth. 

“Helping Hades to the Underworld,” Poseidon answered, as he pressed the tip of his sword closer—just close enough to hurt. Just close enough to draw blood. “She was more than pleased to do it once we mentioned that she could introduce you two.”

“ _ Enough _ . This stalling is going on too long as is,” said another goddess, not the one with the bow. She  _ also  _ had an  _ H  _ name—was _ she  _ Helena? No. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. “What are we doing with him, Zeus?” 

The elder god found it harder and harder to focus his vision—he could feel one pair of his eyes drifting closed, not entirely of his own accord.  _ When was the last time it felt like this?, _ he remembers thinking. Surely not since before he had ascended to the surface world. Perhaps, he thought, not since being conjured from the inky blackness of Chaos’s void. He had not been as weak, as tired, as unfocused, since the moment of his own birth.

Only fitting that his own death would feel the same. 

Zeus, the would-be leader of the young gods, looked down at the God of Life and Death with the arrogance of someone who fashioned himself a vanguard. Even then, as the dust of the war against the Titans was still settling, it was clear that Zeus was angling to crown himself king. Usurping one ruler for another, the Titans’ original dynasty remained completely intact. 

What a damned waste of a revolution. 

With what little strength he had left, the God of Life and Death—in no small part spurred by the memory of young Demeter’s unbidden distaste for her foster-brother—lifted his head up and spat, bloody and contemptuous, hitting young Zeus right between his eyes. 

In retrospect, spitting blood at one’s captor perhaps wasn’t the most deft strategy that the God of Life and Death could have taken. 

But damned though it may have left him, it felt  _ good.  _

“Demeter says he likes talking to himself,” Zeus said, his voice low and ominous, like the roll of thunder across a storm-whipped ocean. In one smooth, dramatic motion, he wiped the blood and spit from his face, not wasting a moment before he began summoning white-hot bolts of lightning into his palm. “Why don’t we make that easier for him?”

Things begin to go untethered from there. Visions of being violently severed in half become fragmentary flashes, like parchment burnt to near-incomprehensibility. But even as the exact details of  _ being destroyed  _ become fuzzy, there are two things that remain clear in the God of Life and Death’s memory. 

First: he remembers the pain. Bright, blinding pain. He remembers the pain of being split in half, the pain of being torn apart. The violence of being made into two separate souls and thrown off the gods’ mountain—there is nothing comparable. 

Hera was right. Death would have been kinder. 

Or, at the very least, it would have hurt much, much less. 

Second: he remembers weeping. 

Not from the pain, and not quite out of regret. 

But because, as he ceased to be, as his soul became two separate entities, the God of Life and Death—

(or at least, the two lost halves of him that were yet to become Zagreus and Thanatos)

—had never before, in his long, immortal life, been so fundamentally, inexplicably, incomprehensibly  _ lonely.  _

**\---**

Recounting everything eons later, the God of Life and Death—or  _ whosoever _ he can call himself now—realizes that he, of all entities,  _ should  _ be hungry for blood. 

He should be angry. He should want vengeance, or at least, to reclaim his rightful place as an elder god. He should already be tearing the world apart, just as he had been torn asunder by the gods who, now, take their rule for granted. He should want to show them what real, primordial power looks like. 

But he doesn’t. 

Instead, he simply lies there on that too-small bed, in that familiar bedroom, thinking about what a miracle it is that he, an ancient god once destroyed and long-forgotten, is even alive again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is not a creation story. this is a story of unmaking. 
> 
> whew. sorry to make this one so long. i promise we return to zagreus and thanatos (in ways) next time around. also, this is where the pre-fic disclaimer becomes especially relevant. lots of liberties taken with this one. 
> 
> though this god has no counterpart in real ancient greek mythos, he’s probably the closest to the primordial phanes/the primordial eros, except, you know, in very many ways he's not. i don’t consider him the actual primordial eros because, A) it takes away from the fun, B) i deviated so far from the primordial eros as represented in what (conflicting) stories there that it’d feel weird to say that, even for me, a professional Greek Mythos Disrespecter™, and, C) i have a different horny eros fan design (more in line with the “classic” eros tale where he is aprhodite’s son) on the way (wink).
> 
> so i guess if you want to link him to an irl ancient greek god, phanes in the orphic tradition is the closest, especially given the whole "birth/rebirth/connection to the dionysian rebirth story that is _also_ collapsed into the orphic zagreus," but i'm far from an expert on greek mythos (or even accurate!) 
> 
> god of life and death design sketches are also available on my twitter [here, in case you're curious](https://twitter.com/aka_spacedog/status/1355245326861357058?s=20). 
> 
> next up: a closing, a return.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an ending, a beginning. 
> 
> or: once again, we return.

Megara is the first one to check on them. On him. When she enters Zagreus’s chambers—body tense and ready, whip held sure—he has finally found the single angle that makes the too-small bed something resembling comfortable.

“Hello, Megara,” he says, and he is relieved to hear that his voice has returned to its original timbre, low and rich and soft but _warm._ Like Zagreus’s, almost, except in an accent decidedly unlike that of the surface-world, and with Thanatos’s careful, precise handling of words. It is a surprise to him, hearing his own voice again, after millennia upon millennia of its absence. But it is a good surprise, nonetheless.

To her credit, Megara doesn’t ask the question they both—they all?—know the answer to. She is far too clever and far too familiar with his component parts to spin a question out of what is, effectively, a foregone conclusion. Instead, after a moment, after a beat, after a barely-suspended silence, she speaks, plain as she always is.

“So. Is this how it’s going to be from now on, then?”

Her voice doesn’t tremble at the question. She doesn’t even blink. Brave girl. The God of Life and Death almost wants to congratulate her on it, but he knows her well enough—secondhand or not—to know she would not take his compliment well. So instead, he just shrugs, unbothered by the urgency inherent in her question.

“No. Well, not exactly,” he says. “It’s more convenient and certainly more efficient to divide all the duties of life and death between two bodies. And I wouldn’t be so cruel as to deny Zagreus and Thanatos their joy.”

Whether the joy he refuses to deny his component parts is the joy of being in love, or the joy of being alive doesn’t matter. The difference, to him, at least, is insignificant to the point of damn-near being nonexistent.

Speaking of nonexistent.

“—but. I’ll still be seeing you around every now and then, all the same. After all, since I’m awake and alive again, after all these eons I’ve been gone, I think I’m entitled to see how the world has changed since the little Olympians threw me off their mountaintop. Or at the very least, I’m entitled to get out and stretch a little bit.”

As if to drive the point home, he stretches—one pair of arms reaching above his head, the other pair reaching outward, pulling his shoulders back and flexing the muscles in his chest. He lets out a little satisfied noise as he does, only a little bit involuntarily. When the God of Life and Death settles back from his stretch, he feels much, much more alive and energized and curious than he had mere moments before. It is a curiosity that bids him to take the familiar curls that have fallen into his face and examine them closely, almost playfully. 

Running fingers through his hair, the God of Life and Death is glad to learn that it is the same length as it was during his first life: short in the back, with a tangle of curly black bangs in the front. He thinks about what a _hassle_ it would be, to have to will his countenance back into his preferred form, when it occurs to him that he was so lost in the joy of being alive again that he hadn’t taken stock of what condition he’s even in.

“Come sit,” he says to Megara, patting a little spot near the edge of the bed. If she has hesitations, she takes care not to show it, and there is something very uncanny about her sitting on the bed, whip in hand, as he leans against the headboard, bare as the day he was made.

He will not ask her, however, to tie him up. Not this time, at least.

“What do I look like to you?” he asks her, now that she is closer. Now that she can get a good look at him.

“What do you mean?” she asks, suspicion threaded through her every word. She is expecting a trap, a trick, something, maybe, to justify her raising her whip against him. 

“I mean, when you look at me, what goes through your mind? What do you see?”

She considers her words carefully before she responds. And _that’s_ what Thanatos likes about her. Among other reasons. “I see Zagreus and Thanatos. But I can’t point to how you look like either of them. I can’t tell where Zagreus ends and Thanatos begins in you. It’s like they never were. You’re like their reflection on the surface of the river Styx: rippled and distorted. But still very much them.”

“Hmm,” he hums, getting a little singsong at the end. He swings his long legs off the edge of the bed, and he stands, stretching up a little more as he does. Now, _that_ feels much better, no longer being cramped in that teeny-tiny little bed.

Sauntering over to the Mirror of Night, the God of Life and Death notices a few differences in how his form has taken shape. He has Zagreus’s flame-feet now, though _his_ fire extends to just below his knees, and his wings—consistently white as bone, a long, long time ago—are tipped and barred, in some places, with the slightest, faintest blue-green. But other than those few changes, he is, blessedly, completely the same as the day he was split apart. Four arms. Four mismatched eyes. Two legs. A pair of powerful, feathery wings. One beautiful cock. So far, so good. No missing parts. He is still broad-shouldered and handsome, though he had no reason to doubt that. It is not vanity to appreciate that both Zagreus and Thanatos are both things of beauty. Not that he’s not prone to a little vanity, himself.

As he preens about himself in the mirror, the God of Life and Death can see elements of both Zagreus and Thanatos in his reflection, just as Megara had said. He wonders, quietly, who among the three of gods represented within him really came first.

“Did it hurt?” Megara asks, her sudden question interrupting the brief moment he has allowed himself to question the Fates. Perhaps for the best, he thinks. It’s not like he could afford to tempt their wrath any further. 

He smiles at her when he answers, and he feels a twinge of familiarity when he sees her raise an eyebrow at him, as if anticipating something very, very unfunny. “When I fell from Olympus? Yes. Very much so.”

Megara frowns. Instincts validated. “I was serious.”

“I was, too,” he says with a shrug, and he touches his chest gently, as if anything further would split him in two, once more. There is no scar there, no seam, nothing to indicate that he was ever anything but whole. But there is a phantom ache there—snaking deep underneath the effervescent warmth of feeling _whole again, alive again—_ that he cannot shake the feeling of. 

The formerly-destroyed primordial god glances himself in the mirror once more, and he briefly catches Megara’s gaze in it. Quickly, she looks away, having been caught looking with much less sharpness and much more curiosity than she was built for. There is no blush on her cheeks, no trembling in her limbs, but clear in her expression is the shame of being caught staring, even still. Before the God of Life and Death can say anything, a memory that is simultaneously his and far from his own resurfaces, like Zagreus rising from the Pool of Styx: Megara, much younger than the Megara sitting on Zagreus’s bed, cooing over bat pups.

She’s _always_ been enraptured by winged things. Things like her.

So Megara's watchful stare held more than suspicion, after all. 

“You can touch them, if you want,” says the God of Life and Death, settling back down on Zagreus’s bed slowly, ever-so-slowly. No need to break furniture and draw more attention to himself than he already has, after all. Not that he was complaining about being under Megara’s watchful gaze. Something inside him warmed at being the center of her attention. Like flowers chasing after the sun.

Part of him—the part of him still healing and hypervigilant from being cleaved in half and thrown off a mountain—does not want to leave his back exposed to her, especially when she was still so very distrusting of him. But a deeper part of him—the careful, patient side of him, the side that grew up lonely, the side that spent eons learning what _true_ loneliness feels like—knows that letting Megara see his willingness to be open, to be _vulnerable,_ is an easy way to earn her trust. Or, if not earn her trust, at the very least let her relax just enough to know that he is not an active threat. And so, he presents himself to her, shoulders relaxed and wings flexed just enough to give her a good angle at which to pet them, fully knowing that at any time, she may very well decide to send him back to the deep, dreamless non-existence he’d been stuck in for eons.

But she does not.

At first, Megara is careful, distrusting, even, just barely grazing his feathers. He hardly registers that she is touching him at all, in fact. But then, seemingly realizing that he does not intend to go back on his word, and further realizing that his wings are not barbed, or poison-tipped, or otherwise more dangerous than they appear, she threads her fingers through his feathers, stroking them as she might run her hands through the hair of a lover.

“I’ve never seen anything like these,” she says, quietly. The God of Life and Death does not turn to glance at her over his shoulders, but he can feel her gaze on him, full of equal parts concentration and intensity. “Not in-person.”

“They’re the same as what Thanatos wears as his pauldrons,” he says. Her touch is gentle, betraying her ferocious demeanor, betraying the performance of detachedness she plays at with her tone. “Do they disappoint?”

“No. I wouldn’t say so. They surprise, but don’t disappoint.” she says, and though she keeps her voice low as a rule, he can tell that her admission of surprise, her adoration, even, is genuine. “They’re—soft.”

The God of Life and Death simply hums at that, decidedly satisfied that she finds him—or at least, parts of him—fascinating. He basks in that praise, minor as it may be, fully realizing then that the warm, fuzzy feelings of pride he gets at satisfying her stem from his constituent parts, from Zagreus and Thanatos’s relationship with Megara, in all its complexities and intimacies.

Once again, he is forced to reconsider his relationship to the two halves of his immortal soul. For in that very moment, he may have been the sole god with full dominion over life and death, but even slumbering within him, Zagreus and Thanatos still held onto some control. 

“I shouldn’t even be talking to you,” Megara says after some time, still running her fingers along his soft, sturdy feathers, almost absentmindedly. Not that Megara was _capable_ of being absent-minded. That much, he knew well enough from Zagreus’s memories of being felled by her hand, over and over again.

“And why not? I, personally, think I’m a great conversation partner,” jokes the God of Life and Death, his tone deadpan and level, even as he realizes very well that it’s only funny to himself.

Her hands still, and he can feel her pulling away from where she had been admiring his feathers. He yearns for that touch again, immediately. 

“You’re a threat to this House of the highest order,” she answers. Megara’s tone is serious again, sharp as talons, but underneath that sudden pivot back a chillier disposition, the God of Life and Death notices that—most importantly—there seems to be the notable absence of any intent to act. “Just your very existence threatens the uneasy truce that Zagreus and the Queen fashioned with Olympus. Not to mention how your revival and the domains you claim stewardship over put you well within a legitimate claim to rule over the Underworld. And I’ll remind you—first and foremost, I am loyal to Lord Hades, and I live to serve his kingdom.”

Nothing that Megara has said is untrue. In fact, he finds himself impressed—she’s barely known him but a few minutes, and she already recognizes how potentially dangerous he is. Active modifier there, of course, being _potentially._

When the God of Life and Death finally speaks, he turns to look at Megara, peeking over his shoulder at her, looking out through long bangs. Playful. Coy, even. He smiles at her in a way that he may have smiled at one of the human lovers he took in his first life. He smiles at her in a way that Zagreus did, some time ago, back before their relationship ended for the first time, back before they began to mend things, back in a lifetime that the God of Life and Death did not live.

“And yet you’re talking to me, anyway,” is all he says, because it is all he needs to say by means of a rebuttal.

Megara huffs, gaze darting away briefly. Just for a moment. _Caught._ And for the second time that day-or-night. They were both lucky that his presence was best kept secret, indeed. “Because of some misplaced fondness for Zagreus and Thanatos, most likely.”

He sighs, turning to face her more clearly. “Look. I don’t plan on moving to usurp the Lord of the Dead, or what have you. I don’t think I even _can,_ and what would be the point of doing so? So I could listen to the complaints of unhappy shades until the end of all time and being? So I could be restricted to half my domain and let the souls above fester? And believe me, I’m in no hurry to get up to Olympus. I didn’t even care for it the _first time_ I was alive. This House and the careful protocols and routines that your Lord set up for it are in no danger on my part.”

Perhaps because of that ingrained need to earn her praise, it disappoints him when she does not seem convinced. He sighs, but he lets himself smile at her, anyway.

“The most I’ll do is try to figure a way to sneak away, sight unseen, and pet Cerberus. I have enough hands for the job, after all.”

She is quiet, her expression flat and calculating—evaluating the situation, trying to parse him out, slotting together things in her mind—before she speaks again.

“You know damn well that Cerberus only likes to have one head pet.”

Ah. And there it is. A calling of a bluff. A test, if he’d ever seen one: _how much of Zagreus is really in there, are you really to be trusted, are you really them, is the House actually in danger,_ she might as well have asked him.

Clever _and_ brave, with all her dangerous elegance and carefully-trained poise aside. He can see why his component parts are as fond of her as they are.

“Hasn’t stopped me before. Maybe if I had four hands back then, we wouldn’t have had to use Hypnos’s Cthonic Companion to keep him from mauling me,” he says, calmly, as if he doesn’t have a thing to prove.

Of course, it is only a half-truth. _He_ didn’t do anything of the sort. But Zagreus did try, for the longest time, to pet Cerberus’s middle and rightmost heads, back when he was even younger than he is now, and it _did_ result in the near-destruction of one Companion Bleaty. It is a truth, insofar as the events that he has described happened. It's only that _he_ didn't live through them. 

(Not that any memory that he draws from either of their lifetimes will be anything but _half-true,_ when applied to him, but.)

That answer seems to satisfy her. She lets herself relax, if only slightly, if only noticeable to someone who has intimate familiarity with her, or, at least, has the memories of two other someones who do. 

“Curiosity for a curiosity,” he says, once Megara seems trusting enough not to attempt to destroy him. “Can you tell me about them?”

“What can I tell you about them that you don’t already know?” she asks, a little short, as if their previous conversation was the answer to the question he just asked. “Their memories are your own.”

"Well, yes. Technically," says the God of Life and Death. “Retracing Zagreus and Thanatos’s memories is like sitting high in the audience at the amphitheater. The details are familiar enough. It’s the things that go unsaid that I have a harder time accessing.”

“I—” Megara starts. Perhaps for her, too, those feelings are difficult to access. Perhaps for her, too, describing the immaterial—those ever-important details that make relationships _real—_ is just as murky as it is for the god who did not feel those feelings firsthand. She _is_ the kind to compartmentalize, after all.

After a while, after just enough contemplation to coalesce a relationship into words, she speaks, tentatively, but seriously all the same. “Well. Shades and immortals alike have a hard time with Thanatos. Not for any malice of his own, it’s just—he’s very straightforward. He’s dedicated to his job, and he doesn’t mince words. I respect him for that. Zagreus, on the other hand—”

She goes quiet for a moment, trailing off. Whether Megara has decided to take a moment of quiet to think about her words even more carefully, or to _really_ work through how she felt about Zagreus doesn’t matter to the God of Life and Death. All that matters is that she is taking time to figure out her answer. Better to wait for her and receive an honest answer than to push her and get a partial one.

And anyway, it’s not like he was in a rush to go anywhere, after all.

“Zagreus—” Megara starts, sounding like she _still_ has to figure out her feelings about the Prince of the Underworld. The God of Life and Death does not blame her. He, too, does not know how he feels about Zagreus, other than the inherent fondness that comes from knowing that the Prince is, quite literally, half his soul. “Zagreus is exhausting. And I say that as both a compliment and a complaint. He’s like a fire that never burns out, so when he’s dedicated to something, he’s _really_ dedicated to it. Single-mindedly. To the point where he’s not willing to hear anything else. To the point where he’s willing to get himself and others hurt for it. We’ve—had issues with that before.” 

_Ah, yes._ He remembers their falling-out in fragments, distant scenes in Zagreus’s memories: a screaming match, words that were so carelessly thrown about, things that he wishes he could take back. He remembers thinking how he wishes he were Thanatos, to whom carefulness came easily. He remembers running to Thanatos, quick as he could, so quick he left a trail of sparks behind him.

For a moment, he thinks he can remember the pain, the heartache, the roiling churn of regret and blame in his stomach. He begins to question that lingering emotive memory immediately. There were things he just could not have access to. Things he could not, himself, remember.

What the God of Life and Death _definitely_ remembers is the way that Thanatos calmed that storm brewing in Zagreus, the storm that threatened to overtake him, when and Megara first parted ways. He remembers the kindness that Thanatos offered, even though he knew that Zagreus wasn't fully in the right. He remembers feeling calm, in the brutal aftermath of heartbreak, so long as Thanatos was around.

The God of Life and Death remembers stirring awake, if only for a moment, if only for a blink, as Zagreus slowly began to realize—slow, even for those blessed with immortality—just how deeply his feelings for Thanatos went.

But that’s neither here nor there, now.

“He’s getting better, don't get me wrong. I think he’s growing up, finally. It took him centuries, but he’s finally learning that all of creation doesn’t revolve around him,” is what Megara says, bitingly, but she smiles as she speaks, still. If he didn’t know any better, the God of Life and Death might have thought he heard a chuckle smuggled in among the sharpness of her words. “Not that he hasn’t always had a good heart. It’s just—it took a while for his brain to catch up with it. And of course, he had a lot of help. Thanatos has always been there to fill in the gaps where Zagreus is so painfully lacking.” 

“And vice versa, I imagine,” he says. He doesn’t have to imagine. Not really, not when the fact that he exists at all means that Thanatos and Zagreus both had parts to spare and emptiness in their hearts in need of filling in equal measure.

That _he_ is alive and awake and whole again is enough evidence for the fact that Thanatos, as together as he tries to make himself seem, was falling apart once, too. 

“Mm. Yes, well. Thanatos has substantially fewer glaring, destructive flaws than Zagreus does. But he’s not perfect. Far from it. But—ever since he’s been with Zagreus, he’s gotten better, too. And that’s not even describing how well they fight together. That shade Achilles may be onto something when he describes how close they are drawn. I don’t think I’ve ever met a pair of beings more perfectly made for each other than those two,” Megara says. She is pensive for a moment. As if the reality of Thanatos and Zagreus’s closeness—just how _inexorably drawn_ they very much are—is slowly, slowly coming into full relief. That the reality of who they are, that is to say, halves of a whole, is only now dawning on her. “But then again, I suppose there’s a reason for that. You’re proof enough of the long design of the Fates.” 

“No. No, I wouldn’t say so. Nothing is ever guaranteed. Even for us immortals. Even given the design of the Fates,” the God of Life and Death replies, quiet, gentle, serious. He and Thanatos are both lucky, after all, that Zagreus was not born mortal.

His rebuttal, simple though it might have been, is enough to rid of any potential counterargument that Megara may have had. She falls back, and from the look of contemplation worn clear on her face, he does not blame her. A silence falls between them, not awkward, not charged, but full of some suspended sense of possibility regardless.

“Do you love them?” he asks, suddenly. The question slips from him like a fugitive, as if he asked it not entirely of his own volition, but the God of Life and Death does not have the wherewithal to take it back.

“I do,” Megara answers, without hesitation. “But it’s hard _not_ to love them. Zagreus, especially. He’s spoiled rotten, and doesn’t even realize it, but he’s so lacking in real malice that—he just expects the best. That people will be their best. That people _deserve_ their best. And he makes it _his_ problem when people don’t get that.”

“Oh, good,” says the God of Life and Death, feeling relief unfurl in the pit of his stomach, settling an anxiety even he did not realize he was carrying. “So he’s not repeating my mistakes.”

To that, she looks at him carefully, as if trying to fit together ideas. As if trying to figure out what she’s missing. Not her fault. She was hardly a speck of an idea, not even a proto-being, back during the war. So he shrugs.

“It’s a long story, better suited for another time.” 

“I’ll hold you to that,” she says, and he almost doesn’t believe it until she smiles at him. It’s faint. Barely even a twitch of her lips, if that. But it’s there. Deep down, drawn from the memories of a man who—at least as long as the God of Life and Death is awake—no longer exists, he can see evidence of her smile, even as she keeps it just as tightly-drawn and familiar as the carefully-braided leather of her trusty whip. 

“Well,” he says, “Thank you for your care and your candor, Megara. Though I doubt you would have offered me anything otherwise.”

“Right on the nose,” she says. “It sounds like you have more access to Zagreus and Thanatos’s feelings than you thought you did.”

Coming from anyone else, it would not have been a compliment. But from Megara, it is high praise. He all but glows at it. “And it sounds like _you’re_ much more generous than any of the shades shuddering under your whip give you credit for.”

“Hm. Well. Don’t let that get out. I’ve got a reputation to uphold,” she replies, and he does not mistake the way that warmth finds its way into her distant, ever-cool tone. If he didn’t know any better, he would think she’s going _soft_ for him. As if Megara were capable of anything of the sort.

“Oh, you know I won’t,” he says, stretching out languid and coy as he could on that too-small bed. “Even if I could, I _like_ you, Miss Megara.”

She hums, nonchalant, but he does not miss how her ever-sharp gaze flicks along the broad expanse of his body, quick enough to miss. Quick enough, maybe, that she doesn’t notice she does it, herself. But it is not quick enough to escape _his_ notice.

“Between you and I?” she asks. “I’m starting to think that maybe in time, I could find myself liking you, too.”

He grins at her, toothy and wry and loaded promise. Curiosity for a curiosity, parry for parry, barb for barb. That’s how it went with her, if scrying Zagreus’s memories was any indication. “ _Threat to the House of Hades of the greatest order_ and all?”

“Keep your enemies close, they say,” Megara replies, and when she looks at him, now, hungrily drawing her gaze from his navel to meet his own four-eyed gaze staring back at her, he knows fully well it is done with a Fury’s intent. 

Oh, she will be _fun._

“Well,” he says, for as much as he wishes to test just _how close_ she was willing to keep him, the God of Life and Death cannot ignore the restlessness thrumming underneath his skin, growing in intensity with every stolen breath he takes. It is a youthful restlessness that, though not his own, commands him, bids him to take his rest. “I have to go. Zagreus is waking up now. I’ll be seeing you.”

For a moment, she looks conflicted, vacillating between disappointment and something akin to relief. But as with all of Megara’s expressions of fickle emotions, it lives only briefly, and in subtlety as it does. As the God of Life and Death settles as comfortable as he can in Zagreus’s bed, she leans in close, almost as if to tell him a secret, as if to whisper to him something that—like his existence—stays between the two of them. But she does not speak. She does not whisper threats of violence, or well wishes, or anything to him. Instead, Megara simply kisses him once on the cheek, a gentle thing, completely absent of the heat and desire that he knows she is fully capable of.

And yet somehow, that little show of affection warms him up, radiating energy and possibility—like the first day of spring after a long, slow thaw. 

“Sleep well, elder god,” she says. “Let me know if Hypnos hassles you while you’re in there, next time we talk.”

“Will do,” he says. “Give our boys my love.”

The God of Life and Death lets all four of his mismatched eyes fall closed, settling in for a moment’s rest that he has not earned. Blinking out of existence is less like falling asleep than it is like being destroyed again, just without all the pain. In his last dregs of consciousness, he thinks about how this must be what it feels like, every time Zagreus is pulled back down to the Underworld, every time he is beckoned home by the river Styx.

He thinks about the warmth of being reborn, about the possibilities of his newfound afterlife, about how grateful he is, how lucky he is, to have Zagreus and Thanatos as his component parts, as his not-quite-progeny, as the two shining halves to his immortal soul. He thinks about everything there is, everything that can be.

And then, in the span of one immortal’s heartbeat, he thinks of nothing. And the God of Life and Death is nothing, once more. 

**\---**

Zagreus stirs awake slowly, overwhelmed with feeling and burdened with the sense of being wise beyond his years. When he opens his eyes, he is surprised to find himself blinking back tears.

There is no reason for him to cry. Not after having woken from such a wonderful dream. Not for the wonder of waking up and feeling Thanatos’s familiar weight settled peacefully at his side. Not, even, for the surprise of seeing Megara, sitting quietly at the foot of his bed.

And so, the god-prince of the Underworld wipes at his eyes, hoping that as he does, it will wipe away that odd ambivalence gnawing at the back of his mind. 

“Meg?” he murmurs, and he pushes away the strange, half-asleep thought that tells him that his voice does not sound like his own. “What are you doing here? How—how long have you been sitting there?”

She shrugs. “Not long. I was just passing through.”

Zagreus sits up to face her more properly, and he gets the strangest feeling of déjà vu as he leans against his headboard, watching her sitting at the edge of his bed. He must still be tired, he thinks, as he looks at Meg, looking at him. Something about the way she looks at them makes him feel so, so sad, but so, so loved at the same time. “You look like you’ve peered into Master Chaos’s void. Is something wrong?”

“No,” Meg replies, and though it does not sound like a lie, it does not sound very much like the whole truth, either. She pauses, as if to stop and think about something, as if weighing something very, very serious, before she continues on. “You two just talk in your sleep.”

If Zagreus didn’t know any better, he would think he could see the smallest of smirks on her lips.

“Oh,” Zagreus says, his face warming with a blush, and he glances at Thanatos, sleeping soundly by his side. “We—we didn’t say anything embarrassing, did we?”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. She does not hide her smile from him. Not now. It makes Zagreus feel warm and bright and for some reason, he is thinking of something called _summertime_. “It was actually kind of nice.”

“Oh,” Zagreus says. “Glad to hear that we were excellent conversation partners, then.”

From the look on her face, Zagreus is convinced that he’d said something wrong. But she does not berate him for his loose lips or for an accidental cruelty. Far from that, she leans in, kissing him. Chastely. Gently. As if searching. But it is a kiss, all the same.

Then, all too quickly, as quick as it had been initiated, it is done. When Meg pulls away, eyes fixed on Zagreus’s, she seems as if she may still be searching. For what, Zagreus can only wonder, and hope that he has helped her find it. 

“Well,” she says, standing from her spot on the bed and making her way away. “I’d best be going. I’ll see you back out there, Zag.”

And before he can even decide if he wants to stop her, she is gone, off to the pits of Tartarus with the flutter of her wing.

“See you back out there,” Zagreus says, to no one but himself.

He settles back beneath his sheets, settling in closer to Thanatos. He is close enough to feel the coolness radiating off Thanatos’s body. Something deep inside him says that it is still not close enough, will never be close enough. But, for the time being, it will have to do.

Leaning in closer still, Zagreus presses a gentle kiss on Thanatos’s forehead, right on that familiar spot he loves so much. It is light as a butterfly, lighter than Zagreus has ever been in his life. Thanatos still stirs, blinking awake like he has been brought back to life. 

“Mm. Good morning, Zag,” Thanatos murmurs, his voice barely above a whisper. “Or night.” 

“Hey,” Zagreus murmurs in turn, tucking a little strand of hair behind Thanatos’s ear. His natural curls are coming in again. Zagreus makes a point not to mention it—that way, Thanatos will keep his hair unstraightened for just that much longer.

“I thought I heard Meg. She was here?” Thanatos asks, half-mumbled into the sheets. 

“Yeah. Just for a minute, though. She says we talk in our sleep,” Zagreus says, and Thanatos just hums amusedly, his long eyelashes gracing those sharp, delicate cheeks of his. World-weary from the weight of his job, Thanatos does not afford himself much time to rest. But here, lying in Zagreus’s bed, Death takes his time, allowing himself the luxury of sleeping in, if only for a few more precious minutes.

It is a blessing to witness Thanatos acting with such abandon, with such ease. It is a blessing to see Death so carefree.

Seeing Thanatos like that makes Zagreus want to share something vulnerable. It makes him want to _be_ vulnerable. It makes him want to give all of himself over. It makes him want to be possessed. 

“I had the strangest dream,” he says suddenly, the words springing forth fully-formed, as if coaxed out from a force beyond Zagreus's own will, but far from outside of Zagreus's own wants. In the quietness of his tone, he is opening his heart up and presenting it to Thanatos, for the God of Death to do whatever he sees fit. 

“Oh? Will you tell me about it?” Thanatos asks. His voice is gentle as he shakes off the last dregs of sleep, almost going singsong at the edges. Never before has Thanatos been more clearly Hypnos’s twin than in that moment—all the while still being so beautifully _Thanatos,_ inherent seriousness and all _._

Zagreus wants to kiss him and never stop.

“I dreamed that I held you so close that we became one, and that you and I weren’t you and I anymore,” Zagreus says, twining their fingers together. “We were just two parts of one soul.”

He stares at their hands pressed against each other—Thanatos’s neatly-kept, long, and bird-boned against his own, calloused and scarred, looking so radically different yet so similar at the same time. Zagreus ruminates on that junction where he and Thanatos are joined—merged, if only temporarily—staring at where skin meets skin until his vision begins to blur, until he cannot tell where Thanatos ends and he begins.

What a strange dream that he had, Zagreus thinks to himself. What a strange, wonderful dream. 

“That’s funny,” Thanatos says, his voice still carrying that almost-dreamy quality to it. Zagreus could listen to Thanatos murmur like that forever. “I’d dreamed a similar thing.” 

Zagreus can’t help but break into a grin. He brings Thanatos’s knuckles to his lips, just barely nuzzling against those sharp, delicate, familiar bones. They are so familiar to him that, despite their sheer difference, Zagreus could easily mistake them for his own. “Yeah?”

Thanatos nods, quick-curling bangs falling into his face as he does. He does not brush them away, or fuss over the tangle of his curls, for his attention is all on Zagreus, his golden eyes even more radiant and warm than Helios, high up in his golden chariot.

“Yeah,” Thanatos echoes, near-whispering, his smile mirroring Zagreus’s own. 

They lie there for a moment. They lie there for an eternity. They lie there, exempt from the passage of time through the sheer intensity of feeling. What a strange dream they shared, to be so deeply in love with someone to no longer be two separate souls. What a wonderful dream, to be so in love as to prove the term _soulmate_ to be a literalism. Somehow, they both could tell that there was no credit due to Hypnos, no thanks to be conferred upon the God of Dreams, for that wonderful vision of what a love as deep as theirs might do. Deep down in their bones and their blood and in the very primordial stuff that made them eternal, Zagreus and Thanatos knew that shared experience, unconscious and unintentional but far from unwanted, was all their own. 

“I love you, Zagreus,” says Thanatos, the words slipping easy from him, now.

Zagreus does not have to speak in that moment, but he does. He gives voice to that thing which they both already know so deeply, so intimately.

_“I love you, too.”_

And as they lie there, close as two bodies can lie together, close enough for Zagreus to feel the beating of Thanatos’s immortal heart against his own, Zagreus, god-prince of the Underworld and steward over blood and life, cannot deny how _inexorably-drawn_ he is to Death, to the equal and opposite of his own domain, his own heart.

As they lie there, damn-near close enough to hear the hum of the universe echoing out from one another, Zagreus basks in the incomparable warmth of being united with his _other half,_ set ablaze by the indescribable, familiar fullness of _being_ _whole._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to everyone who followed this self-indulgent little yarn. all the comments and kind words, publicly and privately, have been just absolutely affirming and sustaining, especially as this has been my first work that i've written in over a year. thank you, all. seriously. 
> 
> i've got a bonus chapter on the way that i'll be posting as chapter four of this work that's literally just a couple thousand words' worth of very, very self-indulgent smut starring this fan OC and my favorite mean pointy boy, and i'm working on a separate series of little ficlets that center this character and his relationship to others, including zagreus and thanatos. but in terms of narrative, this chapter is the "end" of this particular story. 
> 
> (or maybe not the "end," but a "closing." a parting. a pause. something with a little less finality, is what i mean.)
> 
> i post [art of this guy on my twitter](https://twitter.com/aka_spacedog/status/1355245326861357058?s=20), and liner notes/fic commentary elsewhere on the internet that you can also find linked to on said bird account. if you wanna yell at me there about this fun, horny OC (or even about ares hadesgame, my #1 mean metal husband) you can do that there, too. 
> 
> but for now, thank you, everyone, again. 
> 
> (p.s.: an alternate title for this fic is "two twunks in a trenchcoat.)


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